The manufacturers that are said to have signed the letter include Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, and Sanofi. [NYT article]
In a statement, the company described the halt as a “routine action which has to happen whenever there is a potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials, while it is investigated, ensuring we maintain the integrity of the trials.”
September 9: 27,769,074 case worldwide; 902,537 deaths worldwide
194,037 COVID Deaths USA
September 9: 6,514,376 cases in the USA; 194,037 deaths in the USA.
September 9: on this date media reported that on February 7 President Trump acknowledged to the journalist Bob Woodward that he knowingly played down the coronavirus even though he was aware it was life-threatening and vastly more serious than the seasonal flu.
President Trump said: “This is deadly stuff,” Mr. Trump said in one of 18 interviews with Mr. Woodward for his coming book, “Rage.”
“You just breathe the air and that’s how it’s passed,” the president told Mr. Woodward in audio recordings made available on The Washington Post website. “And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”
But three days after those remarks, Mr. Trump told the Fox Business anchor Trish Regan: “We’re in very good shape. We have 11 cases. And most of them are getting better very rapidly. I think they will all be better.”
A little less than two weeks later, he told reporters on the South Lawn that “we have it very much under control in this country.” [NYT article]
September 2020 COVID 19
September 10: top regulators at the Food and Drug Administration issued an unusual statement promising to uphold the scientific integrity of their work and defend the agency’s independence.
In an opinion column published in USA Today, eight directors of the F.D.A.’s regulatory centers and offices warned that “if the agency’s credibility is lost because of real or perceived interference, people will not rely on the agency’s safety warnings.”
“We absolutely understand that the F.D.A., like other federal executive agencies, operates in a political environment,” they wrote. “That is a reality that we must navigate adeptly while maintaining our independence to ensure the best possible outcomes for public health.”
They added, “We and our career staff do the best by public health when we are the decision makers, arriving at those decisions based on our unbiased evaluation of the scientific evidence.” [NYT story]
September 2020 COVID 19
Temperature check have little value
September 13: the practice of checking for fever in public spaces had become increasingly common, causing a surge in sales of infrared contact-free thermometers and body temperature scanners even as scientific evidence indicating that they are of little value has solidified.
While health officials had endorsed masks and social distancing as effective measures for curbing the spread of the virus, some experts say that taking temperatures at entry points is a gesture that is unlikely to screen out many infected people and offered little more than an illusion of safety. [NYT article]
September 2020 COVID 19
925,373 COVID Deaths Worldwide
September 13: 28,989,073 case worldwide; 925,373 deaths worldwide
198,150 COVID Deaths USA
September 13: 6,679,023 cases in the USA; 198,150 deaths in the USA.
September 2020 COVID 19
Again At Odds
September 16: President Trump rejected the professional scientific conclusions of his own government about the prospects for a widely available coronavirus vaccine and the effectiveness of masks in curbing the spread of the virus as the death toll in the United States from the disease neared 200,000.
Trump publicly slapped down Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the president promised that a vaccine could be available in weeks and go “immediately” to the general public while diminishing the usefulness of masks despite evidence to the contrary.
Dr. Redfield had just told a Senate committee that a vaccine would not be widely available until the middle of next year and that masks were so vital in fighting the disease caused by the coronavirus, Covid-19, that they may even more important than a vaccine.
September 2020 COVID 19
945,782 COVID Deaths Worldwide
September 17: 30,070,457 case worldwide; 945,782 deaths worldwide
201,348 COVID Deaths USA
September 17: 6,828,301 cases in the USA; 201,348 deaths in the USA.
Unapproved post
September 17: The New York Times reported that a heavily criticized recommendation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August about who should be tested for the coronavirus was not written by C.D.C. scientists and was posted to the agency’s website despite their serious objections, The posted guidance said it was not necessary to test people without symptoms of Covid-19 even if they had been exposed to the virus.
It came at a time when public health experts were pushing for more testing rather than less, and administration officials told The Times that the document was a C.D.C. product and had been revised with input from the agency’s director, Dr. Robert Redfield.
Officials told The Times this week that the Department of Health and Human Services did the rewriting and then “dropped” it into the C.D.C.’s public website, flouting the agency’s strict scientific review process.
September 2020 COVID 19
September 22: NPR reported that the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 200,000 — reaching what was once the upper limit of some estimates for the pandemic’s impact on Americans. Some experts warned that the toll could nearly double again by the end of 2020.
“I hoped we would be in a better place by now,” said Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “It’s an enormous and tragic loss of life.”
COVID-19 became the second leading causes of death in the U.S. after heart disease.
945,782 COVID Deaths Worldwide
September 23: 31,828,741 case worldwide; 976,342 deaths worldwide
205,491 COVID Deaths USA
September 23: 7,098,291 cases in the USA; 205,491 deaths in the USA.
September 2020 COVID 19
White House Overrules CDC
September 30: the White House blocked a new order from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to keep cruise ships docked until mid-February, a step that would have displeased the politically powerful tourism industry in the crucial swing state of Florida.
The current “no sail” policy, which was originally put in place in April and later extended, was set to expire. Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the director of the C.D.C., had recommended the extension, worried that cruise ships could become viral hot spots, as they did at the beginning of the pandemic.
But at a meeting of the coronavirus task force on September 29, Dr. Redfield’s plan was overruled, according to a senior federal health official who was not authorized to comment and so spoke on condition of anonymity. The administration will instead allow the ships to sail after October. 31, the date the industry had already agreed to in its own, voluntary plan. [NYT article]
1,016,433 COVID Deaths Worldwide
September 30: 34,081,921 case worldwide; 1,016,433 deaths worldwide
211,475 COVID Deaths USA
September 30: 7,436,898 cases in the USA; 211,475 deaths in the USA.
September 2020 COVID 19
Previous and subsequent COVID-19 posts:
